Free Republic

A crucial system for making payments to insurers from the federal Obamacare marketplace, HealthCare.gov, has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning that a significant fraction of that online insurance marketplace has yet to be constructed. (Read more: Low-bamacare enrollment) Getty Images Henry Chao, deputy CIO and deputy director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of Information Services, testifies during a hearing before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We still need...

Cmte. Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) holds another in a series of hearings on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the rollout of the government's healthcare website. The administration says the website will be fixed by the end of November.

A Medicare official who oversaw HealthCare.gov's botched launch will leave the federal government for the private sector, according to an e-mail sent late Tuesday to Medicare employees. Tony Trenkle is the chief information officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that built the Affordable Care Act's online portal. He is in charge of Henry Chao, a deputy chief information officer at Medicare whose name came up in congressional hearings as the source of key HealthCare.gov decisions.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today acknowledged that long-awaited enrollment figures for the rocky first month of Obamacare will be “very low.” … The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also announced the abrupt retirement of the chief information officer—the first high-level departure since the botched HealthCare.gov launch on Oct 1. CIO Tony Trenkle is leaving Nov. 15 for a job in the private sector, CMS said. His deputy, Henry Chao, has been identified as a liaison to key contractors who built HealthCare.gov as well as the official who briefed the White House monthly on implementation. The CMS...